Island Christmas stories, as told by The Four Tellers

They had another entirely sold-out summer season, and now the Island's favourite storytellers are back for some Christmas cheer.

The Four Tellers are doing a Christmas show for the first time, featuring some of their favourite holiday stories, as told in a way only they can.

David Weale, Alan Buchanan, Gary Evans and Dennis King usually talk politics, religion, liquor and language when they gather around the kitchen table, but this time, it's a much happier subject for troupe.

"We all wanted to do a Christmas show from the beginning of when we started, our very first show, we said wouldn't it be great to have a Christmas show?" said Gary Evans, appearing on CBC Mainstreet. "First year we didn't have the confidence, but after this last year, we finished our last show on Monday, and had a meeting for the Christmas show on Thursday. We've met every week since then."

Music too

The group will add something extra to the show, in keeping with the season. They have a house band, and guests musicians as well, changing for each performance, including the Beck Sisters.

As usual, these master storytellers draw on their own experiences, highlighting the unique past on P.E.I.

"There's a couple of stories I'm going to tell that are actually stories my dad told us when we were kids," said Evans. "Then a number of them are my own stories, my own experiences of my family growing up. We're from four different decades, so what Dennis did as a child and what David did as a child is quite different."

Back in the 50s ...

Alan Buchanan's stories go back to his childhood in the 1950s.

"I remember the first Christmas when we had the electricity, and an uncle of mine had sent me from Ottawa a three-dimensional, it was like a lamp, it went up against the wall, of Santa and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," said Buchanan. "And there was a red light at Rudolph's nose. The herald of Christmas every year was when my mother would dig out this Rudolph, as we called it, we knew that Christmas was on its way."

Christmas with the Four Tellers will play on Dec. 10 and 11 at the Florence Simmons Performance Hall in Charlottetown, two shows each day, and at the Kings Playhouse in Georgetown on Dec. 18.

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